When a data link fails, an unmanned aerial vehicle can either partially or not at all be addressed and controlled any more. In this flight state aerial vehicle is as it were in an “autonomous” mode in which it is completely left to its own devices. In manned aircraft, automatic landing methods are known according to which once an aircraft pilot has initiated the automatic approach procedure, the pilot no longer has to intervene in the landing approach personally. In this context, the aircraft pilot generally has an existing voice radio link to the air traffic control system and cooperates therewith. If, in contrast, the voice radio link has failed, the vehicle in a control zone nevertheless still appears on the radar screens and the pilot can draw attention to his or her position by visual signs (rocking to and fro around the rolling axis) or by light signals to the tower. A manned aircraft cooperates insofar as it can communicate its intention to carry out a safety landing and as a result priority can be assigned by the air traffic controllers. However, an unmanned aerial vehicle which experiences an irreversible data link failure anywhere on its mission only indicates indirectly that it can no longer be commanded, since it no longer reacts to commands but it cannot communicate its intentions in terms of when and where it plans to land to the air traffic control location. It therefore behaves in a classically uncooperative fashion.